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'Artists are gnostics, and practise what the priests think is long forgotten.' - Hugo Ball

Saturday, 21 June 2008

Not only am I still stuck in Middle-earth but I seem to be drawn back to the Withywindle like the poor Hobbits, unable to turn right and north! Here are those Hobbits with Old Man Willow who is singing to them of water and sleep:

I've always wanted to paint Old Man Willow (good practice for the Ents) as, like Tom Bombadil, I've never really seen a painting of him that I really liked or seemed creepy and frightening enough. I wrestled over whether or not to give him a face but decided in the end that a) if he's to look like he's lullabying the Hobbits he needs a mouth and b) every gnarled old tree you see has got a 'face' somewhere, sometimes several!

Thursday, 12 June 2008

So much for easing back on the Tolkien stuff and doing something different. Try as I might I keep getting dragged back to Middle-earth. This time it's Denethor who somehow managed to pop into my head more or less complete. What is going on? Maybe I'm channelling Gondor or something. Anyway, it's another one in the series of cross-hatched drawings. They don't reproduce very well on screen, I'm afraid:

Thursday, 5 June 2008

My Gandalf (see my post of 8th May) has appeared in the latest issue of the Tolkien Society's Amon Hen magazine (issue 211). It's come out very well, I'm pleased to say, despite all the dense cross-hatching. But it's not alone. There is Ruth Lacon's amazing Niggle's First Sight of the Tree in all it's glorious greenness and also one of Jef Murray's fabulous dragon pictures - Glauring with Niënor - and I'm trying hard to not feel too overshadowed by their skills...

Sunday, 1 June 2008

Ditto my previous post - I'm still painting Tolkien, but I just had to paint Goldberry to go with Tom Bombadil. I've concentrated on the first time he sees her, after she's pulled him into the river (what larks...). Lucky for me that my giant yellow flags are blooming in the pond and I could use them for reference before giving them the chop (they really are too big for the average garden pond).